Contact: Gordon Helm FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(301) 713-2370 9/20/95
A Louisiana contractor will soon begin a construction project to protect and enhance more than 3,500 acres of Louisiana wetlands, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
Dupre Brothers Construction Co. Inc. of Houma, La., will construct a series of wooden and oyster-shell plugs in selected pipeline canals on Point au Fer Island in Terrebone Parish, according to NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, federal manager of the project. The plugs will restore hydrologic patterns and salinity gradients in the southeastern portion of Point au Fer Island.
The construction cost for phase one of the two-phase project on Point au Fer Island is $500,000.
"This habitat restoration project is a great example of federal and state cooperation," said Tom Bigford, acting chief of the Habitat Protection office of the fisheries service. "When completed, a wetlands area of over 42,000 acres will see greater protection from storm damage and tidal surges."
Point au Fer Island, one of the Gulf of Mexico barrier islands located in Atchafalaya Bay, is comprised of thousands of acres of threatened marsh habitat near the Atchafalaya River delta. Pipeline canals dredged decades ago in the island are allowing rapid saltwater intrusion, causing once-vital wetland areas to turn into open water. The brackish and intermediate marshes of the island currently provide habitat for numerous terrestrial and marine species such as the Southern bald eagle, the brown pelican and the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, red drum, sea trout, shrimp and blue crab.
The first phase of the Point au Fer project will construct the plugs to halt salt water intrusion at the western end of the island. Plug location is designed to restore historic drainage patterns across the island and to cause sediment-laden flood waters to flow from the Atchafalaya River across the island's wetlands.
The second phase of the project, currently under design, will backfill portions of a canal adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico that endangers additional areas to accelerated erosion and saltwater intrusion. Phase two is expected to begin construction in the spring of 1996.
This project is supported by 75 percent federal funds provided by the fisheries service, and 25 percent state funds provided by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources as part of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act. Under the act, a task force was formed consisting of five federal agencies and the state of Louisiana. The task force currently is coordinating the implementation of almost 60 projects aimed at mitigating Louisianaþs severe coastal erosion and wetlands loss. Funding for projects totals approximately $35 million annually.